What asian film/series have you just seen.. marks out of 5

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Markgway
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Re: What asian film/series have you just seen.. marks out of

Post by Markgway »

Blind Woman's Curse (1970-Japan) **½
Colourfully weird chanbara with Meiko Kaji as a clan leader stalked by a blind swordswoman and her blood-lapping cat(!).
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Re: What asian film/series have you just seen.. marks out of

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Been quite some while since I saw it, I recall it being pretty good but not one of Ishii or Kaji's best.

Have you seen Lady Snowblood?
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Re: What asian film/series have you just seen.. marks out of

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saltysam wrote:Goodbye Bruce Lee:His Last Game Of Death 1.5/5 Early Bruce Li GOD rip off i remember getting a huge cinema release in this country back in the day,even had a magazine special. it's pretty bad,Li's skills weren't as good as they became and he comes over as rather bland. The tower itself looks like it's made of paper mache :clap: has a seriously catchy theme tune as well so it's not all bad.

Enter The Game Of Death 1.5/5 This Bruce Le effort has some semblance of a plot (he needs to retrieve a stolen document vital to national security) but has some lame brain editing-near the beginning Le is fighting Bolo in a forest (he spends a lot of time in this forest) next scene is a ring where Bolo is battering opponent after opponent until Le appears. The pagoda scenes here are better than Li's effort and actually take place in the middle section of the movie.Like the Li effort Robert Kerver is listed as being in this, i never noticed him,was there two Robert Kervers :icon_suspect:

Invincible Armour 3/5 Good old school kung fu flick,Hwang Jang Lee,John Liu, fast paced, good fights, needs a blu ray release ;)
In the Chinese version of Goodbye Bruce Lee, the main theme is "Love's Theme" by Barry White!

Enter the Game of Death is naff but has a great soundtrack.

I've seen the name Robert Kerver attributed to two actors: the guy who plays the boss in Bruce's Deadly Kung Fu, and the scrawny gwailo from that film and Snuff Bottle Connection.
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Re: What asian film/series have you just seen.. marks out of

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Ivan Drago wrote:
saltysam wrote:

I've seen the name Robert Kerver attributed to two actors: the guy who plays the boss in Bruce's Deadly Kung Fu, and the scrawny gwailo from that film and Snuff Bottle Connection.
which one is the guy who died in '77 then :dontknow:
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Re: What asian film/series have you just seen.. marks out of

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HungFist wrote: Have you seen Lady Snowblood?
Not yet, but it's on my to-view list.
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Re: What asian film/series have you just seen.. marks out of

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Dragon Dies Hard 1.5/5 Early Bruce Li effort is mostly trash, he plays an expert fighter with an uncanny resemblance to Bruce Lee.the plot mostly entails him running around a lot getting into scrapes. extra half star for the awesome Lung Fei.

Ninja Strikes Back 2.5/5 Bruce Le effort is a mess but it's an entertaining one imo. Filmed on a bigger scale than most of his movies this has Hwang Jang Lee,Bolo,Casanova Wong and Harold Sakata complete with hat and golden hand.ETD & Bond music play relentlessly throughout with a climax filmed in the Rome Coliseum.The uk dvd is dubbed but has a very nice anamorphic transfer.
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Re: What asian film/series have you just seen.. marks out of

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For Your Height Only 1.5/5 2 foot tall Weng Weng plays a James Bond style super spy in this bonkers Phillipino exploitationer.

Challenge Of The Tiger 2/5 Bruce Le,Richard Harrison,Bolo,Hwang Jang Lee star in this mindless,stupid but entertaining actioner. includes topless tennis sequences and what i assume is secretly filmed footage of Le meeting Jack Klugman & Jane Seymour :lol:
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Re: What asian film/series have you just seen.. marks out of

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Flower of Chivalry's Life Story: Gambling Heir (Japan, 1969) [35mm] - 2/5
Drama heavy Nikkatsu ninkyo with Chieko Matsubara and Hideki Takahashi. Supporting star Meiko Kaji has a couple of great moments, including a nice gambling scene and a scene where she takes out two bad guys who attack her during bath. Unfortunately the rest of the film is standard drama with little to make it stand out from the rest.

Bloody Feud (Japan, 1971) [VoD] - 3/5
Chipmunk Joe Shishido plays an honourable yakuza just out of the slammer. Makoto Sato is his old friend from another yakuza clan. Sneaky Ryuhei Uchida manipulates the two against each other by killing men from both clans and having them blame each other for it. Functional yakuza film lacks originality until the memorable final act, which sees the half-dead Shishido and Tatsuya Fuji heading for a final journey to catch the main villain after the big battle that normally ends yakuza films. The film also features a kick-ass score by Hajime Kaburagi. Meiko Kaji appears in a small supporting role, but doesn't have much to do.

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Re: What asian film/series have you just seen.. marks out of

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saltysam wrote:Dragon Dies Hard 1.5/5 Early Bruce Li effort is mostly trash, he plays an expert fighter with an uncanny resemblance to Bruce Lee.the plot mostly entails him running around a lot getting into scrapes. extra half star for the awesome Lung Fei.
I do wonder why that sissy guy kept dubbing Lung Fei.
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Re: What asian film/series have you just seen.. marks out of

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Ivan Drago wrote:I do wonder why that sissy guy kept dubbing Lung Fei.
Maybe it was Lung Fei himself? :D
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Re: What asian film/series have you just seen.. marks out of

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Well, you never know!
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Re: What asian film/series have you just seen.. marks out of

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Way Out, Way In (Japan, 1970) [35mm] - 2.5/5
An amusingly dated morality tale about high school bad boys and girls. One of the film's memorable parts involves an innocent student boy harassed by a sexy girl, which traumatizes him to the point that he can't help but to imagine all women naked and start groping them in the train. Other highlights include a psychedelic night club scene and a groovy opening credits sequence with motorcycle footage mixed with images of bare breasts. Nevertheless, it's pretty tame stuff for its era, just like many other Daiei exploitation films which lagged several years behind competitors in terms of graphic sex and violence. It seemed like the proud samurai film giant was somewhat unwilling to jump the bandwagon, but were forced to thrown in at least moderate exploitation to keep up with the competition. This film did, nevertheless, prove successful enough to receive no less than three sequels and was also released in the US as 'Way Out, Way In'. The original title is Koukou bancho ("High School Boss").

Whipmaster: Ballad of Death (Japan, 1970) [VoD] - 3.5/5
A spin off for the Wicked Priest series with Bunta Sugawara as the blind, whip wielding yakuza monk. He's also got a cub with him, blind just like him, as he wanders around Japan and fights evil gangsters. While not necessarily a true classic of its genre, the film rises above its programmer status thanks to atmospheric music, badass performance by Sugawara, and some very satisfying, ultra-violent karate/swordplay/whip action. In fact, if you didn't know better you'd swear this was a 1974 production with heavy influences from both the Lone Wolf & Cub films and Sonny Chiba's karate movies; however, this predated them all.

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Re: What asian film/series have you just seen.. marks out of

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The Defender aka Bodyguard from Beijing (1994: Corey Yuen) Hong Kong

I was surprised on how ultimately mediocre this was. Obviously this was influenced by 1992’s The Bodyguard with a few key differences but the crux remains the same. Like the former Li is hired to bodyguard a spoiled woman (Christy Chung) who was a witness to a triad murder. They will eventually fall in love with each other.

The shootouts were disappointing. The common mistake that “bullets hit secondary characters but not main characters” was prevalent (so much so that bullets which ricochet off small metal columns right in front of the characters instead of hitting their targets.) Jet Li shoots way too much and does not particularly look adept at doing it.

There is not much fighting in the movie and the finale with Jet Li versus former Red Guard Wong (Collin Chou) disappoints. There are a few too noticeable wire uses that detract. It is also edited too quickly. But one of the most annoying aspects was the use of gas in this scene (apparently the characters have gills). It is so inexplicably stupid that is furrowed by brow. Wait I just remembered something even more idiotic. The fact that several characters could outrace bullets fired. Apparently the bullets are so incredibly slow that you could step in front of someone from a large distance to prevent them from being shot (there is one scene even worse than this, but it is a little harder to explain as well as it is a spoiler.) Another hilarious aspect was that the house that was being watched all of sudden had 30 or so thugs just appear. How do you get such a large crowd into a watched house without being noticed? I liked how many of the bodies just disappear and new cronies suddenly appear to be taken out. It is like a video game with spawning bad guys. The whole finale is a huge mess and I could write an essay on all the issues with it.

I watched this in the Dragon Dynasty 5 Movie Collection. This is a glorified version of the Weinstein release. Not too much was cut from the original (differences here) and this comes with the Cantonese track which has the Cantonese songs that were missing from the English track so that is plus. Though the beginning and end credits are from the Weinstein release. Like with most DD releases there is a Spanish subtitle track. The movie is not a plus though.
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Re: What asian film/series have you just seen.. marks out of

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I enjoyed it. :)
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Re: What asian film/series have you just seen.. marks out of

Post by saltysam »

Yeah,it was one of Jet's better movies (not a big fan tbh)
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Re: What asian film/series have you just seen.. marks out of

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I only watched the HK cut I believe, but I enjoyed it as well, although Christy Chung is terrible as always. It's not a very good movie, but it's entertaining in it's own way. Not as good as My Father is a Hero, or Hitman, or some of Jet's other modern stuff... but it's just Jet doing the straight-faced upright cool guy act, so it's a fun (albeit forgettable) ride.

Sad (but not surprised) those fat Weinstein assholes once again couldn't be bothered to simply release the movie completely uncut. They're a cancer in the industry.
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Re: What asian film/series have you just seen.. marks out of

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Bruce Li In New Guinea 2/5 Any movie that has Bruce Li cast as an anthropologist, an ape in a suit and Chen Sing has to worth the effort in spite of it's dreadfulness.Bruce & his mate hop over to New Guinea (this is done so nonchalantly it's like the equivalent of me getting the bus into town :) ) where the snake king rules the area with the aid of his snake pearl.chuck Bolo in the mix and you have an epic on your hands ;)
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Re: What asian film/series have you just seen.. marks out of

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Yi-Long wrote:I only watched the HK cut I believe, but I enjoyed it as well, although Christy Chung is terrible as always. It's not a very good movie, but it's entertaining in it's own way. Not as good as My Father is a Hero, or Hitman, or some of Jet's other modern stuff... but it's just Jet doing the straight-faced upright cool guy act, so it's a fun (albeit forgettable) ride.

Sad (but not surprised) those fat Weinstein assholes once again couldn't be bothered to simply release the movie completely uncut. They're a cancer in the industry.
I've seen precious few of Jet Li's movies. It's a shame we can't see decent versions of them.
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Re: What asian film/series have you just seen.. marks out of

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Gambling Den Heist (Japan, 1975) [35mm] - 3.5/5
A rarely seen humoristic caper by Kinji Fukasaku. Three miserable punks come up with a plan to rob a yakuza gambling den. Things don't go quite as planned. A fun film with a superb robbery scene and excellent tragicomic supporting performances by Takuzo Kawatani and Hideo Murota. The middle third is a bit slow, but otherwise the film comes with the energy expected from Fukasaku. This one is just much lighter and more humoristic than his usual nihilist crime epics. Great score as well.

Azumi (Japan, 2003) [DVD] - 2.5/5
This film will always have a special place in my heart as it made me fall in love with Aya Ueto for quite a few years, collect just about anything related to her, and probably influenced they way I grew up to be and where I ended up as well. I've been hesitant to watch it again in the fear or ruining those memories. Now, a more than decade later, a lot of the film's appeal is indeed gone. For starters, the film could lose about 50 minutes of its 143 minute running time as much of the drama is utterly uninspired, predictable and poorly paced. The stylized action works at times - the vertically spinning camera at the end is still fantastic - but there's a bit too much posing and one does wish Aya was a little faster. On the positive side the film lacks some of the caveats that would plague more recent Japanese films: CGI is relatively minimal, and the movie looks fine for being shot on film. Also, it remains a dozen times better movie than Shinobi: Heart Under Blade (2005).

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Re: What asian film/series have you just seen.. marks out of

Post by Yi-Long »

Ivan Drago wrote:
Yi-Long wrote:I only watched the HK cut I believe, but I enjoyed it as well, although Christy Chung is terrible as always. It's not a very good movie, but it's entertaining in it's own way. Not as good as My Father is a Hero, or Hitman, or some of Jet's other modern stuff... but it's just Jet doing the straight-faced upright cool guy act, so it's a fun (albeit forgettable) ride.

Sad (but not surprised) those fat Weinstein assholes once again couldn't be bothered to simply release the movie completely uncut. They're a cancer in the industry.
I've seen precious few of Jet Li's movies. It's a shame we can't see decent versions of them.
Yeah, a LOT of Asian action movies have been butchered for their Western release, sadly. I was often lucky to watch them uncut through Chinese friends/neighbours. Hong Kong Legends also did a reasonably good job bringing many of these movies to the West uncut.
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Re: What asian film/series have you just seen.. marks out of

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Bruce's Deadly Fingers 2/5 Good supporting cast enlivens this daft Bruce Le adventure revolving around the hunt for Bruce Lee's finger kung fu manual. The film has a very weird ending title card the end coming up just as Le is about to finish off Lo Lieh

Slaughter In San Francisco 1.5/5 pretty bad but still strangely watchable Don Wong Tao actioner notable for Chuck Norris playing the lead villain.The oz dvd doesn't even have a menu and is english dubbed only. the unrestored transfer is at least anamorphic.
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Re: What asian film/series have you just seen.. marks out of

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The Dragon Lives 1/5 Early Bruce Li Lee biopic is pretty dreadful but has some comedic value.( His friend the kindly old cop suddenly becomes a sports journalist 10 minutes into the movie :lol: in another wtf moment they recreate the early dojo scene from FOF with Li sporting a moustache ;) the ubiquitous Robert Kerver who i'm curious about shows up her briefly.

Dragon Inn 3.5/5 I'm not a King Hu expert and haven't seen many of his films but i enjoyed this one (i did slightly prefer FOLK i think) excellent atmosphere, some decent swordplay.draggy in parts but i can live with that.The eureka blu-ray looks great.
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Re: What asian film/series have you just seen.. marks out of

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saltysam wrote:Bruce's Deadly Fingers 2/5 Good supporting cast enlivens this daft Bruce Le adventure revolving around the hunt for Bruce Lee's finger kung fu manual. The film has a very weird ending title card the end coming up just as Le is about to finish off Lo Lieh
The title card was a replacement on the print used - originally the Chinese/English "The End" title card appeared on the final shot of the resolution of the fight, which was removed (idiocy!). Thankfully the missing shot still exists in the OAR as it was reused in Bruce's Last Battle, a patchwork Bruce Le movie made up of bits and pieces from various movies. So in theory, some enterprising fellow could restore Bruce's Deadly Fingers to its uncut glory!
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Re: What asian film/series have you just seen.. marks out of

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The Super Gang (1982)

Probably Bruce Le's best movie, though he isn't in it that much. It's a fun traid-gang-warfare flick with some OK fights, ample nudity, a funky theme song and some guy running around in a monster mask killing people in the manner of the then comtempoary slasher movies. And Bolo drags up!

6/10
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Re: What asian film/series have you just seen.. marks out of

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Tiger & Crane Fists (1976)

The film that became Kung Pow! (and it's very frustrating that the DVD of that film doesn't include as an extra the OAR film print of this), this is a rather odd attempt to pass off Jimmy Wang Yu as a shapes master and it's a role he doesn't suit. Lau Kar-Wing is a rather good sport playing second fiddle to him, and Lung Fei makes a usual great villian, whilst Chan Wai-lau shamelessly hams it up as the Crane Sifu. For a Wang Yu film, it feels too ordinary. His lack of interest in traditional kung fu styles becomes apparent, as it becomes a fight of odd weapons, with Wang Yu using firecrackers against Lung Fei's claw-on-a-whip.

5/10
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